Review

How to plan a revolution

This short, gripping documentary follows two young political
opposition activists during last year's parliamentary elections in the
former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. It gives a gritty account of the
often-courageous struggle to end the authoritarian regime of President
Aliyev.

Niall Mulholland

Azerbaijan is an oil-rich country, with $116 billion in revenue
expected over the next two decades, yet 40% of the population live in
poverty. The dictatorial Aliyev regime is brutal and corrupt. It has
15,000 relatively well-paid interior troops ordered "to stop
political dissent".

The film follows Murat Gassinly, an LSE graduate, and an advisor to
the opposition Freedom Bloc leadership, and Emin Husseinov, a founder of
the Azeri youth movement, Magam (It's Time), in the weeks preceding the
elections, held last November. They consciously model their movement on
the 'colour revolutions' that overthrew despotic regimes in Serbia
(2000), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004), even adopting the Ukraine
orange as their campaigning colours.

Murat travels to Georgia to learn how the Georgian youth movement
managed to oust the old regime. However, opposition movements in Serbia,
Georgia and Ukraine were funded by the US and rich backers, like George
Soros.

Police repression

The Western sponsors claim to support democracy and civil society but
are unlikely to back the opposition in Azerbaijan. The Aliyev regime is
a crucial ally of the US - a "moderate Muslim country", and an
oil-producing nation, occupying a vital geographic position between Iran
and Afghanistan.

Murat and Amin soon find they have few resources to build their
opposition movement and their protests only attract small crowds, as
most people are frightened of police repression. There are harrowing
scenes of riot police attacking peaceful protesters, including elderly
people.

In the days leading up the parliamentary polls, repression against
the Freedom Bloc is stepped up. Their public events are dispersed or
banned and their parliamentary candidates are arrested going to a Baku
rally, along with Murat.

The Freedom Bloc claims it should win many seats. But the day before
the elections, hundreds of opposition candidates pull out, saying they
were pressurised. On 6 November, election day, the film-makers get
footage of men working for the government carrying bags of ballots from
cars to counting stations well after polls closed. The government
claimed to win 110 out of 120 seats.

When Western monitors condemn the elections, Murat and Emin believe
this is the start of their Orange revolution and make plans to set up a
tent city in Baku city centre, copying events in Kiev, in 2004.

The Freedom Bloc leaders address tens of thousands of protesters
demanding new elections, but then call for protesters to go home at
nightfall. Murat is crestfallen. "I really hoped the US would help
Azerbaijan," he laments. Instead, the US publicly endorses the
results - which give the opposition a mere seven seats - once again
backing its friend President Aliyev.

After a half-hearted campaign in the regions, the Freedom Bloc calls
a final Baku demonstration, with its leaders swearing to stay in the
square this time. Soon the protests are violently broken up by thuggish
police. An old woman collects the orange opposition flags, remonstrating
with the police and saying poignantly, "We will never be
free".

Ideology

How To Plan a Revolution shows the brutality of many former Soviet
Union states and the double standards of the Western powers. But it
fails to examine properly the policies and ideology of the Freedom Bloc,
who try to win over the rural poor with calls for an oil windfall of a
few hundred dollars for everyone and appeal to the "city
intelligentsia". Its pro-capitalist, market policies fail to
attract most workers and youth, even taking into account the regime's
ballot rigging.

Workers in Azerbaijan want democratic rights and decent living
standards but a growing number no doubt look at the bitter fruit of 'colour
revolutions' elsewhere, and see growing economic crisis and political
instability in countries like Georgia, Serbia and Ukraine.

The success of a movement opposing dictatorial rule is not just
reduced to the question of resources and vague appeals for liberal
democracy, as the film makers seem to think. For the masses to go onto
the streets they have to feel they have no other road and that they are
fighting for something worthwhile.

If a viable, socialist opposition existed in Azerbaijan, workers and
youth would follow it, struggling to overthrow the regime and vastly
improve their living standards. The Azeri pro-big business opposition
may be more successful in the future, if repression and poverty worsens
and there is no independent working-class alternative. However, only a
red revolution - a genuine socialist transformation - will bring a real
change for Azeri working people.

How to Plan a Revolution - BBC This World series. Shown at Human
Rights Watch International Film Festival, London, 20 March, 2006.